Ok, I have more time to reply now.
I think that Actraiser was a masterpiece for its time.
Again, at the time, it was a gorgeous game with an amazing soundtrack. It had a perfect blend of side scrolling action and SIM that kept you in the mix the entire time. As stand alone pieces, either element would have been an ok game, but mix the two and it was perfect.
Sadly, they thought no one liked the SIM portion so they scrapped it on part 2...which really killed the game. The most tragic part is how stunning part two looks, it is easily one of the best looking SNES games made...that just happens to b boring, overly difficult and with broken mechanics.
Long story short, I love the original. Ill still play it through every couple of years.